The Awful Success
by V.Evergreen
Summary: After a particulaly distressing case Lisbon finds comfort from someone just as troubled as herself.


Teresa Lisbon hung her head in her hands as she sat leaning over her desk. Today had been a disaster. On the paper that she was trying to work her way through everything had gone according to plan. The killer caught and with no casualties. An unqualified success.

But this latest case had hit closer to home than she was comfortable admitting. Child murders were always hard on the entire team but the one thing worse than them was a serial child murder.

Even as she thought about it her hands begun to shake slightly. She wasn't sure if it was late hour, the worn off after affects of too much coffee or the brutality of today's case but she was barely holding it all together. Lisbon knew that she should have gone home hours ago but just the thought of going home to her cold and empty apartment had driven her to stay up late and try and find refuge in the last of the paperwork. It felt like if she were at work her mind could be kept busy, and a busy mind had no time to dwell on the darker points of the day.

But however hard she tried her mind kept bring back the same image of Jack Horston, the murderer of five young children as he sat being interrogated,

"_Why did you do it?" Cho's voice betrayed nothing of what he was feeling, even though only hours before Lisbon had seen him leave the scene of the crime, the body in front of him too much to look at._

_The man who sat in front of him looked normal. A little soft around the middle, slightly crooked tooth and a heavy set brow but someone who you would pass in the street and think nothing about. There was no outward sign of what he was._

_He leaned forward slightly his lips quirking up into a smile "Because I could." He said simply, "Because there was no one there to stop me."_

_From her viewpoint of behind the tinted glass Teresa felt truly sickened. Unconsciously, her hand moved up to touch the cross that hung around her neck but unlike usual no comfort came from the action._

_She turned to look at the only other person in the room besides herself. Patrick Jane stood with his face expressionless as he looked at the man though the glass. He stood with tension in every line of his body and eventually with a quiet excuse he had slipped from the room. Lisbon had sighed, no matter how horrible cases with children were they always hurt Jane the most. It was easy to forget that he'd been a father too._

Slowly she pushed the memory forcibly though her mind. She looked out of the window from her office subtly to see into the bullpen. Laying on the sofa in the cast shadows she could see Jane. He looked like he might have been asleep from the rise and fall of his chest but she couldn't be sure. Lisbon looked down at the papers before her; there wasn't anything that couldn't wait until morning.

Slowly, and with care to be quiet she gathered her things and made her way out of her office. She had made her way to the door of the bullpen before a voice behind her made her stop,

"Lisbon?"

She looked around to see her consultant looking after her with bleary eyes. He sat up on the sofa and took a proper look at her. Normally this would have made her feel self-conscious, after all he could tell so much about someone from just one look and normally that unnerved her. But not today. Today she couldn't bring herself to care. Jane noticed this and with an unusual amount of tact said nothing. Instead he just patted the sofa next to him.

All Lisbon wanted to do was sleep but at the same time she dreaded going back to her own place. There she would be forced to confront whatever her mind threw at her and because of this she found herself walking over to him and collapsing into the space beside him.

Neither said anything but after a beat of hesitation Jane put his arm around her shoulders. It wasn't much of a gesture in the grand scheme of things but it was enough to break her down. Lisbon never quite worked out how it happened but she found herself with her face buried in Jane's chest as he rocked her backwards and forwards. She clung to him as she tried to fight back the tears; she didn't want anyone to see her crying even if it was Jane. She tried but as hard as she might the images of the dead haunted her much more effectively than their ghostly counterparts ever could.

Taking in deep breathes, Lisbon tried to collect herself, noticing as she did so that she could smell the faint scent of tea and soap. It was smell so familiar and comforting and so _Jane_ that it almost set her off again. Pulling back from him she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand just to make sure no tears had escaped her, she blushed when she saw Jane looking at her pensively,

"Sorry." She muttered looking down.

"Nothing to be ashamed of." He said gently in return. When she refused to meet his eye he just sat there offering his silent support.

Lisbon on the other hand sat wanting nothing more than to walk away but so tired even the thought of moving was unwelcome.

With a sigh, Jane shifted and put an arm around the woman next to him and laid down on the sofa once more pulling her down with him

"Don't be so stubborn." He said when he felt her resist slightly. Hesitantly Lisbon laid down beside him. When Jane put his arm around her and held her tighter to him she knew that this wasn't just him comforting her. He was as much in need of comforting as she was and she wouldn't be the one to turn him away. Not after a day like today. Deciding to just go with it she shifted once more and drifted into a slightly uneasy but dreamless sleep.

Everything else could be dealt with tomorrow but for this tiny moment in time was going to sleep knowing that the person holding her needed her just as much as she needed him

…..

A/N- Thanks for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it, please review if you have the time, all the best-VE


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